


Things Sam's Mother Told Him

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Series: Raise Me Up [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, M/M, Motherhood, but otherwise mostly gen, dean/castiel at the end if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 10:01:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera





	Things Sam's Mother Told Him

_Eat Your Vegetables_

“Here.” Dean’s pockets were usually full of lint, stray coins he picked up off the pavement and broken G.I. Joe pieces. Yet, somehow there’s always something for Sam tucked inside them. Sam was three and Dean’s pockets were magic. 

Today Dean held out four small, furiously red tomatoes and when Sam took them in his palm, they were still warm from the sun. 

“Where’d you get them?” Sam rolled them between his fingers. 

“Woman down the street has a crazy huge garden. Eat up, Sammy.” 

Sam had never eaten anything pulled fresh from a vine before. He held the tomato up to his nose and inhaled. There was something rich in the smell. He ate the first one cautiously until the juice broke over his tongue. The rest he gobbled down then looked up guiltily, waiting for Dean to tease him for liking it too much. 

“Good.” Dean put his arm around Sam’s shoulders. They were sitting on the cool cement curb in front of a motel and the sun poured heat onto the asphalt. “Gotta make sure you grow up big and strong, right?” 

_Wear a Hat_

He almost made it to the door. 

“It’s like five degrees out.” Dean jammed the ugly orange wool pile over Sam’s ears, ignoring his whine. “And I don’t want to hear you complaining when we walk home.” 

“It’s stupid.” Sam tugged at the edges of the hat, groaning when it just slid further over his eyes. 

“You’re stupid.” Dean held out his hand and Sam slipped his into it. Kindergarten was too old to hold hands with his brother on the walk to school, but Sam figured he’d let Dean get away with it just a little longer. 

_Share Your Toys_

“What are you doing?” Sam popped his head over the couch. 

“Check it out.” Dean fiddled with a multicolored box. “Rubik's Cube. Thirty cents at Goodwill.” 

“What’s it do?” Sam flopped over the side, landing a little on Dean, who swatted at him. “Ow!” 

“Yeah, well don’t elbow me in the gut next time.” Dean showed Sam the cube, twisting it. “The colors are supposed to line up.” 

“How?” 

“I dunno. That’s the point. Gotta figure it out.” 

Sam watched Dean twist at the cube for a while longer. When Dean caught him still staring, he sighed and handed it over. 

“Here. You try. You want Spaghettios or Mac and Cheese for dinner?” 

“Spaghettios.” Sam said absently. He turned the cube over and over, looking at the small squares. 

He twisted it, the pattern just there for him to take. It fell together before the microwave signaled dinner’s readiness. Sam stared at it, befuddled. Dean couldn’t do it, but he could. 

“You ok?” Dean called out from the kitchenette. 

“Yeah.” Sam wondered if he should just hide it, pretend he broke it. Would Dean be mad or upset? Sometimes when Dean got mad he’d go outside the room to cool off and leave Sam alone. It was pretty much the worst punishment Sam could think of. 

“Hey!” Dean snatched the puzzle out of Sam’s hands before he could worry over it anymore. “How’d you do that?” 

“Um. It just sort of worked?” Sam frowned. “I dunno.” 

“That’s awesome.” Dean lit up and put the cube on top of the television. “Means you’re like a genius or something, I bet.” 

Dean showed Dad the cube when he came back and John smiled at Sam, ruffled his hair. Dean rocked on his feet, a little behind Dad, eyes bright with pride. 

_Look Both Ways Before Crossing the Street_

“Sam!” Dean shouted and Sam froze, stomach twisting into knots. He’d just wanted a few minutes to himself, a little time in the cool mountain air away from the stuffy room and Dad’s snoring and Dean counting out pennies when he thought no one was watching. 

He was only eight and though he didn’t think of it that way yet, it was the first time he’d tried to runaway. Dean caught up to him at the edge of the parking lot. 

“What are you crazy!” Dean barked. “You could’ve gotten run over.” 

The street wasn’t that busy though the trucks that rumbled by were going pretty fast. Sam stared across the pavement. Longing for what lay beyond in the darkness warred with the steadfast familiarity of Dean holding out his hand.

“I don’t want to go back in.” He managed.

“Yeah.” Dean scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “I know. How about we walk down to that playground together. Bet I can spin you round fast enough to make you throw up.” 

“Nuh uh!” Sam grinned at him. “I’m too heavy for that now.” 

“Uh huh.” Dean countered and chased him down the sidewalk, herding him away from the roar of traffic. 

_Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right_

“He called Rebecca fat.” Sam started talking the moment Dean’s feet hit the inside of the principal's office. They must have pulled him out of the high school across the street when Dad proved unreachable. 

If Dad had come for him, Sam wouldn’t have said a word. Ten years old and he was already learning that stony silence could say more than a thousand angry phrases. If Dad had come...but he hadn’t. Never did. It was Dean instead, looking tired and disappointed. 

“Is she?” 

“Dean! That’s not the point. She cried.” Sam folded his arms over his stomach. 

“They told me you made him cry right back. Told him he was trailer trash.” 

“He is.” Sam curled on himself. 

“Doesn’t mean you say it.” Dean smiled brightly at the secretary, who gave him a sad smile back. That was weird. Usually older women thought Dean was charmingly adorable. 

“You can take him home.” She said. 

“Thanks, m’am.” Dean tried his smile again, but it didn’t dim the pity in her eyes and Dean wilted underneath it. 

“Come on.” Sam said around the lump in his throat. 

They didn’t talk on the way back, kicking a stone between them until it skittered off in the high grass. 

“The thing is,” Dean told him just before opening the door to their latest musty home, “you gotta be above it. The punches will keep rolling and sometimes its good to fight back, but not if you’re just gonna do more damage.” 

“I don’t get it.” Sam admitted. “It’s what you would have done.” 

“I probably would have actually punched him.” Dean admitted with a rolling shrug. “But you’ve got to be better than me.” 

“Why?” Sam dumped his bookbag on the floor. 

“Because otherwise what’s the fucking point?” Dean probably didn't mean to be heard, but the words stuck to Sam and he turned them over and over, but they never did make a lick of sense to him. 

_This Mess Won’t Clean Itself_

The door slammed shut, leaving them alone in the silence. 

“I’m not sorry.” Sam reiterated, twelve years old and addled with the newborn rage that seemed to shift and burn under his skin all the time. 

“Get the dustpan.” Dean was already kneeling on the floor, surrounded by the broken glass of the lamp. 

Sam swept. Dean held the pan without meeting his eyes. 

“I hate this.” Sam confessed though he wasn’t sure what he meant. Maybe fighting with Dad, maybe sweeping, maybe their whole damn lives. 

“I know.” Dean dumped the pan into the garbage, the tickles of shards almost musical against the metal. “People in the next state know.” 

“I didn’t ask to be born.” He whined a little, still prickly and annoyed by the tense line in Dean’s back. 

“Who did?” Dean asked the open air, flicking on the television without turning back around. “Life isn’t something you choose. It just happens.” 

It was a monster movie, a giant Moth taking Manhattan. Eventually Dean relaxed enough to sit down on the couch to watch it. He didn’t say anything when Sam clamored in too close next to him, even though Dean had declared Sam too old for cuddling a long time ago. 

The monster got killed by a lone army man and his plucky sidekick. Sam fell asleep on Dean’s shoulder. 

_Wear Clean Underwear_

“D’aww! Little Sammy is all grown up!” Dean teased from the doorway, watching Sam slick back his hair then let it fall back into his eyes. “So who’s the lucky girl?” 

“I told you already!” There was a pimple on his nose, right on the tip like a cartoon witch’s wart. Fourteen sucked. “Janice from my Chem class.” 

“Remember to use a condom.” Dean grinned lasciviously. 

“It’s not like that.” His hair flopped uselessly into his eyes. He really had to grow it out a little more and it would look halfway decent. “She’s a nice girl.” 

“Uh huh. It’s always the nice ones.” 

“Just leave me alone, ok? I got this.” 

Dean held up his hands and retreated to the living room. It was a rental with three bedrooms. Sam was stuck with the smallest one, but the privacy more than made up for it. When he got back into his tiny box of a room, he found clean laundry folded on his bed. It was his turn to do it and he’d totally forgotten. He would have had to wear one of his shabbiest t-shirts and inside out underwear. 

“Thanks.” He told Dean on his way out the door. 

“Don’t do anything, I wouldn’t do!” Dean called out after him. “And maybe some of the things I would!” 

_You Can be Anything You Want_

“Want to tell me what this is?” Dean dropped the envelope in front of him. Sam picked it up, ran his finger over the seal. 

“PSAT scores.” Sam told the table. 

“When did you take them?” Dean pulled out the other chair, sitting close enough that their knees knocked together under the table. 

“In Nebraska.” 

“That’s what you were studying so hard? Thought you were trying to impress that hot math teacher.” 

“Yeah, no.” Sam pushed the envelope aside. 

“Not going to open it?” 

“What does it matter?” He huffed out a breath. “They don’t even mean anything. Just supposed to give you an idea what the SAT is like and we know I’m not going to take that.” 

“Why not?” Dean looked surprised and Sam started at him. 

“Um, because I’m not going to college? So what’s the point?” 

Dean didn’t say anything. Just picked up the envelope and opened it over Sam’s protests. He could still hold Sam back with a hand in his face though Sam was only one grown spurt away from having longer arms. 

“Wow.” Dean dropped his hand, dropped the papers. 

“Wow what?” Sam picked them and looked over the lines of numbers. “Oh.” 

“You should take the SATs. Just for fun.” Dean kicked him under the table. “Bragging rights.” 

“But-” 

“Time for a run.” Dean cut him off. “Dad’s orders. Five miles today.” 

“For fuck’s sake.” Sam dragged himself out of the chair, folding the paper into squares until it would fit his pocket. It stayed there for weeks, growing soft around the edges just as his hopes sharpened. 

_Write Thank You Notes_

The first thing Sam did in Standford was buy a postcard. He addressed it to Dean, sent it to one of the P.O. Boxes Dean remembered and Dad never did. It had a skyline of Palo Alto on the front. It took him hours to think of something to put on the back. Finally, he settled on, 

‘Safe. Wish you were too. Love, Sam’ 

The ‘Love’ looked weird on the page, full of hesitation marks and unwelcome pinned under the sparse message. It was too late to scratch it out though. The stamp was already affixed. He mailed it and walked away from the post office, trying not to feel like he’d left a limb behind. 

_Feed a Cold, Starve a Fever_

“Open.” Dean demanded. 

“No airplane noises.” Sam croaked, throat a raw mess from coughing. 

The soup was good, tomato with bits of rice floating in it. Dean fed it to him spoonful by spoonful. Castiel lingered in the doorway, a dizzying ellipses at the end of the whole year’s bizarre sentence. 

Sam started coughing again, the soup sloshing into acid in this stomach. Dean put an arm around Sam’s back, pressed his forehead against Sam’s shoulder. He had to be exhausted, spread thin over so many days of watching and waiting. 

“M’fine.” Sam tried to tell him. “You should sleep.” 

“Can’t.” Dean groaned. 

“I’ve got him.” Castiel was there, a cool hand on Sam’s brow. “Rest a little. There’s a blanket on the chair.” 

“But-” Dean started. 

“Now.” Castiel snapped and Dean retreated. 

Castiel was smaller than Dean, no longer holding the tensile strength of a being folded a million times inside a constraining vessel. Sam almost threw him off in the last wave of his coughing fit, but Castiel held to him just as Dean would.

“Go to sleep.” Castiel ordered, pressing Sam into the sheets. And though there was no mojo behind it, Sam did. 

_You’ll Always Be My Baby_

They ran, fast and wild as wolves, through the woods. They ran from a spirit, chasing the moon across the sky. Sam wanted to throw his arms out wide and embrace the whole damn world. Dean whooped beside him, jumping over a fallen tree trunk. Castiel, all steel now and long runner’s legs, passed them by. 

They reached the grave site just in time, Castiel pouring the lighter fluid, Dean throwing down the match and Sam keeping the spirit at bay with a well aimed rifle. 

“You ok?” Dean asked when the smoke began to rise, his eyes finding Sam like a compass needle straining to North. 

“Never better.” He grinned, truth of it all singing down to his bones. “You?” 

“Perfect.” 

“You’re bleeding.” Castiel corrected and fussed over the cut on Dean’s forehead. 

“It’s nothing.” Dean snorted and reached for the rifle. “Give me that before you hurt yourself.” 

“Uh huh.” Sam rolled his eyes, but tossed the gun to Dean, who caught it one handed. The other hand slapped ineffectually at Castiel’s ministrations. “I’m a grown man, you know.” 

“I’ve noticed.” Dean gave up fighting off Castiel and just leaned into him instead, slinging an arm over his shoulders. “Still Sammy to me though.” 

“Oh come the-” Sam stopped himself, gave Dean a half-smile and started walking toward the car. 

After all, there was no one else left in the world to call him Sammy. No one else to look at him and see all the people he’d been. No one who remembered his first steps and his first wobbly words. No one else had seen him weak and strong and smart and painfully stupid. The Impala took in their battered bodies and Dean pointed her towards home. Sam closed his eyes. Dean would get them there. He always did in the end.


End file.
